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Nigeria’s import of US cooking gas rises by 440%

By BusinessNews Staff on April 10, 2015

Nigeria, Africa’s top oil producer and largest holder of natural gas reserves on the continent, imported 764,000 barrels of Liquefied Natural Gas, otherwise known as cooking gas, from the United States in 2014, the first time since 2010, according to the Energy Information Administration.

Data obtained from the EIA, the statistical arm of US Department of Energy, showed that Nigeria imported 140,000 barrels of LPG in 2010. For 2011, 2012 and 2013, the country did not import a barrel from the US, compared to 2,000 barrels each in 2007 and 2009.

The biggest annual import of US LPG by Nigeria happened at a time when the US import of Nigerian crude oil hit record low following the growth in US shale oil production.

The US imports of Nigerian crude oil tumbled by 75 per cent last year to 21.51 million barrels, the lowest since the country started importing from Nigeria. In July, the US imports of Nigerian crude fell to zero for the first time on record, according to data from the EIA.

The country, which traditionally had been the largest importer of Nigerian oil until the last few years, changed from being the largest importer of Nigerian crude oil in 2012 to the 10th largest in 2014.

The growth in US light, sweet crude oil production from the Bakken and Eagle Ford has resulted in a sizable decline in US imports of crude grades of similar quality, such as Nigeria’s crude oil.

Nigeria is home to the world’s ninth biggest gas reserves, with about 187 trillion cubic feet of proven gas reserves and 600 Tcf of unproven gas reserves.

The country imported 139,000 barrels of LPG from the US in January this year, according to EIA data.

Other petroleum products Nigeria imports from the US include kerosene, finished motor gasoline (petrol), jet fuel, fuel ethanol and lubricants.

The Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas Limited had last year affirmed its commitment to providing the nation with sufficient volumes of LPG otherwise based on production operations from its six train facility at Bonny, Rivers State.

The Head of Energy Research, Ecobank Capital, in an emailed response to questions from our correspondent, said, “Basically, Nigeria continues to be an attractive market for petroleum product exports for US refiners because they can compete on prices with the NLNG.”

According to him, most of the gas in the US is priced based on the Henry Hubs prices, which is lower than our gas prices of $2.80 (export parity price).

“Furthermore, indigenous buyers are unable to negotiate freight rates and other charges when buying from the NLNG as they get an inclusive price but when they import, they are able to control their expenditure on these items better. The end result is a cheaper LPG landing cost,” said Oni.

The Chief Executive Officer, NLNG, Mr. Babs Omotowa, was in November last year quoted to have noted that NLNG supplied about 80 per cent of the total cooking gas consumed by Nigerians.

“NLNG’s intervention in the domestic LPG market began in 2007 with the dedication of some 150,000 metric tonnes of cooking gas annually, in response to an acute shortage of the product in the market at the time.

He said the company further increased this volume by 66 per cent to 250,000 metric tonnes in 2013 in readiness to meet growing utilisation of cooking gas by Nigerians.

According to the NLNG boss, only about 600,000 metric tonnes of cooking gas have been absorbed by the local market since NLNG’s intervention in September 2007 because of market inefficiencies across the LPG value chain.

[Punch]

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